


Day 1 Floor 1

by DreamWalker682



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Bloodletting Beast, Byrgenwerth (Bloodborne), Canon-Typical Violence, Chalice Dungeons, Gen, Labyrinth Madman, Original Character(s), Temporary Amnesia, Watchdog of the Old Lords
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamWalker682/pseuds/DreamWalker682
Summary: The journal of an unnamed Tomb Prospector now trapped within the winding halls of a Chalice Dungeon. What will he find, descending into the depths?
Kudos: 29





	1. Trapped.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the folks over at r/tombprospectors on reddit for encouraging me to write this! While it does play with canon and changes from the, y'know, standard chalice structure, I think anyone who always felt like these tombs were somewhat lacking will enjoy.

Day 1, Floor 1.  
It has been 2 days since I was separated from my fellow prospectors. Me, Gehrman and several others were doing a sweep of a new Chalice found by several scholars when we were ambushed brutally. Several Keepers and their pack of Hunting Hounds stalked from the darkness and began to surround us. Gehrman made the call to retreat, but I was separated by a pair of Hounds on the way back. After a lengthy process of navigating the dungeon I found the Seal Chamber but the path outside was blocked off, and the Chalice presumably emptied. I Cannot fault them for leaving me behind, for they have seen what the Keepers can do to one overwhelmed. The smell of charred bodies still lingers in my nose after all. 

In case Byrgenwerth deigns to send a rescue team, I shall document any findings I make in this journal. Questions and theories will also fill these pages, so to anyone reading this well into the future I pray my grammar is not illegible. 

The Keepers have all but vanished, taking their hideous hounds away with them. Never in my years in the company of my fellow Tomb Prospectors have I ever seen so many in one place. Did they know we were here? Did they somehow notice the gate to this accursed place slip open? I don’t believe that answer will ever present itself to me, for the Keepers are of an odd sort. We captured one once, and its inside was hollow, faintly smoldering and ashen. If it is the blessing of some Great One it is one we have yet to gain knowledge of. 

On a more pertinent note, I regret skipping that lecture on the flora and fauna of the Chalices. Roughly 3 days of food are still available from my rations, maybe 5 if I can spread it thin. It’s much more appetizing than the mold. 

Day 2, Floor 1.  
I fear the Keepers are not as gone as I would have liked to think. While scouting for a safe corner to hunker down in I rounded a corner and came face to face with one of them. Their eight burning eyes and skeletal face show no expression, but I cannot shake the feeling that it knew I was going to be there. Fancies aside I fled as swiftly as I could. While powerful, the Keepers are not particularly fast for long periods of time. And without the Hounds present, I made my escape with only some mild singeing of my garments. 

This encounter, while dangerous, did cause a queer thought to arise in my mind. In every Chalice I have ever seen, the halls were filled with the near-mindless remnants of Pthumeru. Their black eyes and gaping mouths would stare at us from every corner with intent to slaughter and devour. Yet, I haven’t seen a single pale visage in my time down here. Only the skeletal forms of the Keepers and their Hounds have ever appeared. Why is this place empty of Pthumerians save for their ashen guards? Why was the Chalice that brought us here so strange?

Laurance claimed that it had fell from the sky, but that lad is well known for making stories up just to get attention. Alas I fear I will not know. I imagine it has been a day that I have been down here, a measly 24 hours. And yet, my hopes for a rescue party grow ever slimmer without reason. I suppose we’ll see. 

Day 3, Floor 1.  
Why do I write the floor number when I denote the day? It’s not like I’ll be going deeper. 

Today was uneventful. I’ve made myself some sort of makeshift shelter, piling the shattered remains of statues and treasure near the front of an empty alcove. It has served me well so far, but there is only so much it can do. There are less Keepers wandering about today, but they seem frenzied, searching. 

My rations are half-depleted. I must start to think of a plan should a rescue party not be coming. But what? The path outside is sealed and the only way to go is deeper. I’ve been here so long that I’ve memorized the twisting passages that make up this strange place. Damn. Damn.

Day 4, Floor 1.  
I’ve decided. I will get nothing done sitting here on my own ass and waiting for Byrgenwerth to send a rescue party, as if they would. They left poor Olek down in Pthumeru when faced with those dreadful madmen, why would I be any different? 

In 2 hours I set out deeper into the Labyrinth. The Loran chalice connected to the surface, albeit across the very continent we live on, so who can say this is any different. I haven’t seen a Keeper in a day, hide nor hair of any beast. I am leaving a copy of this page pinned in the Chamber of the Seal for any rescue party that comes here. Either I’m alive and finding my way out or the depths of this place have claimed me. 

Wish me luck.

Day 5, Floor 1.  
I am alive, but only barely. On my way into the depths I opened a door and found myself trapped inside a room with a keeper. There was only one and it was unflanked by hounds. The hallway behind me filled with colorless fog, solid and cold to the touch. The Keeper stepped forward, and I swear the thing looked at me and smiled with all the glee a face of ash and bone can make when it saw I had realized I was trapped. 

It wasn’t easy, but I killed it. I drove my saif through it’s chest and it crumbled to burning ash. Its “corpse” sits only a few paces away from where I am right now. All that’s left is a black iron katana, still smoldering to the touch, and their pointed hat. Every few hours the ash shifts or ignites, burning brightly but soon dying back down. Are they perhaps immortal? Preserved in ash far after they should have died? Or are they merely just cinder, without true thought or feeling? I suppose these are the thoughts that will accompany me now, for I am trapped. That colorless fog hasn’t vanished and I am nearly out of supplies. My body is not faring well either: The wounds are minor, but they still burn with the heat, instantly cauterized by that horrible blade. 

I suppose I have no choice now. The only way to go is Deeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our dear Prospector has arrived. We are ever so Excited.


	2. Deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tomb Prospector begins his descent, searching for anything to help him on his journey or sate his growling stomach.

Day 6, Floor 2.  
The last of my supplies are eaten and my heart is heavy, yet I march forward. The gate past the Keeper contained a chain-wrought elevator which has taken me down deeper into the earth. I’ve taken the Keeper’s hat with me, and I do not know why. Maybe it is a trophy, a commemoration of something I nearly died to do. Maybe I just enjoy the way it looks. 

I suppose, now that I will likely no longer be found by any search party, I can be a bit looser with my… writings. The realization only set in after I left that damned room. Either I won’t bloody be coming back, or I’ll come up so far away that I’ll be stranded in some distant countryside. Damn this Chalice and Damn Laurance for finding it. Damn them all to hell or whatever the Great Ones have instead. Damn the whole fucking place. 

Might as well keep describing this place if it’s to be my tomb. It’s strange, stranger than the floor above me. While that was odd due to the number of Keepers swarming the place and the sheer lack of anyone living, this place is strange because there aren’t even Keepers here. It is utterly silent, no swinging pendulum-blades, no muttering in the dark, no skittering of animals. It is utterly empty. There aren’t even corpses! 

…But I did find something. Blood. Not fresh blood, not by any degree. It was inside a box, a dusty, undisturbed metal box. It’s old, but it has yet to coagulate. I know I most likely shouldn’t but… Let’s just say I should probably worry about food more so than drink right now. 

Day 7, Floor 2  
The search for food has remained fruitless, but my search for anything else has yielded results, both useful and thought-provoking. In the first camp is a firearm. It is of no recognized make or model, but it is powerful. The force of the blast nearly sent ME flying! It might serve useful, should I run across anything else down here. 

Now, what is more thought provoking are these reliefs carved on the walls of this tomb. There is a symbol, a spiral that switches direction every time it completes a full loop framed within a rectangle. (I would copy it down but… Looking at it for too long causes my eyes to sting. It’s best described like a ripple in the water.) Before it stand many Pthumerians, depicted as if garbed in gold. They appear to be dancing and pointing towards it simultaneously, an activity never shown before in the carvings of Pthumeru proper. Whatever the carving means must be important, as it takes up the entire wall of a massive rectangular room at the end of this floor, directly above the tunnel that leads to a further descending elevator. 

I will descend tomorrow, but until then I shall study this carving and hope to sleep. 

Day 8, Floor 3.  
This layer is empty too! No animals, no “people,” no corpses. Its as if everyone just got up and left! I’m starving and beginning to grow worried that there simply won’t be anything down here. Ideally, I would like to find one of those meticulously-tended royal gardens with the massive fruit trees and algae-filled fountains, but I regret to say that even the warm, raw flesh of an animal would suffice. I have fire paper, so even if it isn’t properly prepared I could still fucking cook it. 

There isn’t anything else to say, really. 

This is several hours later, and I’m hearing noises. They’re coming from behind these massive stone doors, much like the ones that led to Queen Yharnam’s throne. I can’t describe the tone, but it sounds like muttering, like the gibbering of a madman in the walls of an asylum. I dread to imagine what is behind it, why it is saying such strange words:

“I’ve got to hold the door, I have to hold the door, I need to hold the door. Can’t let them in, can’t let them through. Hungry. I’m Hungry. Can’t let them, can’t let them… Can’t…” 

The voice then proceeded to growl and grunt for several minutes before silencing. I know that it’s risky, that whatever is behind those doors is likely mad, but what choice do I have? It’s either starve or face that thing, and I know damn well which choice I’m going to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The depths are vast and hunger to be seen, to be known. So do We.


	3. Gatekeeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Dear Prospector opens the door, coming face to face with the Gatekeeper.

Day 10, Floor 3.  
I am alive. Horribly, miraculously alive. I agonized before that blasted door for what felt like centuries before my aching stomach and the sound of bone-ashed footsteps spurred me onwards. I pushed open those doors, adorned with the carvings of ancient legends and histories, and I beheld the wretched gatekeeper.

It stood tall, taller than any Pthumerian I have ever seen. Its face was a ragged edifice, perforated with gaping pitch-dark holes. It wore a cape of the deepest scarlet, wet and floating as if the flayed hide of some loathsome beast. In each hand was held a shotel, dripping with scarlet blood from the HUNDREDS of bodies that carpeted the floor. They are rotting, half-eaten, infested with flies. I saw once-rich finery and slave rags mingled together in mounds of Meat, jewelry and weapons adorning slurried flesh and carving off into great mangled chunks. 

This gatekeeper sat hunched over the sprawling feast, gorging itself and stuffing the stomach that doesn’t exist, for I can see the gaping hole that was its guts. It stood up as soon as the doors creaked open, sprinting towards me across the carpet of corpses. Did it already know I was here? How long did it know? 

It doesn’t matter, for it is dead all the same. I cut and hacked and splintered and swung and shot and scythed and shattered until it was DEAD and I was ALIVE. The flesh tasted like heaven on my tongue and its dried blood soothed my parched throat. The royal clothes that still hung on to its emaciated frame wiped the gore from my mouth as I took my fill. The many bodies stood up around me, their flesh falling from bone and blood floating ever skyward to join with the one they worship. But they bowed to ME INSTEAD, laid a crown of blood upon my head and KNELT. 

Oh Gehrman, Master Willem, if only you could see me now! I am more than you could ever hope to be, you poor, poor fools who fear the Blood and the Flesh and Eyes squirming inside our heads! You serve the Paleblood, trusting that THING of genocide and endless hunts not to slaughter you all just to KILL, just to BURN IT ALL DOWN and DRAG IT INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SKY AND

Day ??, Floor 3.  
Fuck. This is bad. Several pages have been torn from my notebook, and I do not remember this descent into madness that I apparently wrote in blood rather than ink. How was I sure it was the Tenth day when my pocketwatch is broken, shattered by that wretched gatekeeper? What is this Paleblood? Did the bodies truly stand up and bestow a crown to me when my head is empty and the Pthumerians here as dead as before? What… What drove me to Eat?

My mind is foggy, tearing at itself near the edges. Is this what that poor sod Ludwig felt when he first beheld that moonwrought blade in the depths of Isz, turning it on us and screaming of darkness and moonlight? I feel like there is a hole in my mind deeper and blacker than the night sky that I filled with crumpled paper to keep me sane. 

Before I end my entry, there is something that has yet to be said. There is more to this room than just corpses. So much more. At the end of this once-royal hall is a Door. I cannot dream of any other word to describe it, for my mind will not let me. I believe it best to speak of what it isn’t. It is not shaped like a Door and it does not look like a Door. It is not any color but blue, and it is not closed. It does not not hurt my eyes to look at, and it is not not emblazoned with the symbol I saw earlier inside this catacomb. It does not call for me. It does not call for me. It is not a Door. 

I think I need to sleep…

Day ?? Floor 3.  
If I were to guess the amount of time that has elapsed since my encounter with that thing lying still and half-eaten beside me, I would say 2 days. There was no way I was unconscious for 2 entire days following my entrance into the once-royal hall before I began to write. Combining the time I can assume I was passed out for and the time that has elapsed since, it could barely be 2 days in totality. My grasp of time has grown so strange that I believe the removal of a “day” timestamp at the start of each entry is prudent. This will free up the ability to make more entries every day, rather than restricting myself to a single one. 

Now, with the formalities out of the way, and a clearer head on my shoulders, several things are of note in this place. The first and maybe most obvious is the bodies. They carpet the floor, several feet deep and mangled with rot. They have not liquified or putrefied despite the heavy amount of dust that coat the walls betraying how long this place has been shut. My boots sink into the mire, but never too deep despite the viscera. How are they still so relatively unrotten? Is it some strange chemical or arcane ward? Whatever it is, it fails in places. The flies and maggots have set in at the edge, eating inward. 

Second are the things this room contained. The first is the Gatekeeper, which is how I will refer to the thing that attacked me as I entered. It resembles the Labyrinth Madmen and Pthumerian Descendants that one would find in the deeper depths of Loran or Pthumeru, hurling themselves forward with brutal sickles. This one was much taller, easily upwards of ten feet. The flesh that I have not… torn out is thin yet muscular, with little body fat. His facial features are not the dark eyes and black-tinted lips of many Pthumerians. No, these resemble literal holes in the skull. They seep a dark pitch resembling lantern oil without the iridescence. 

Moving down from the mouth reveals an emaciated chest, very much at odds with his other musculature. Further still reaches the stomach, which was already a ragged wound before I arrived. Through some happenstance or strange intention, the abdomen is empty, to the point where I can see the spine and a girdle of muscle holding it together. There is no intestines or stomach, and the heart and lungs still hang above. Any food swallowed collected here and fell out when the thing tilted forward. No wonder it was starving, anything it ate fell right through it!

Putting aside that frankly horrifying notion, we come to The Door. I cannot call it anything different, for like I said, my brain won’t let me. It sits ever present at one end of the room, open and waiting. I do not know what possessed me to speak of it in negatives, but whatever compelled me has since vanished. 

But I cannot stop calling it A Door.

Even out loud my voice works against me to pull this string of syllables from my lips, uncaring of what I have to say on the matter. No matter how hard I try it won’t stop. It feels… Natural. 

Wistful comments aside, The Door is perhaps my only way forward. That damn fog has filled the door behind me, too solid to breach. The light of the Door shifts and swirls before me, and call it madness or intuition, but I feel as if I can walk right through it to somewhere Else. But should I try? It’s the only way forward after all, unless I want to spend the rest of my days in this damn charnel pit. 

Fuck, I don’t know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we Are. Where does the Door lead? What wonders will Our Prospector be privy to, deep beneath the Earth?


	4. Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Door is open now.

Layer 4?  
I went through The Door. I do not know what possessed me to enter through the shifting blue light but the fact of the matter is that I have. My hand touched the light and for a second it felt like glass on a cold winters night, but then it was like water, and I was falling down through it, not being pulled. It was as if the force of gravity had suddenly changed and I was falling to the side instead of down. I failed to make out anything as I fell, the scenery blurring into a deluge of cerulean light. And then I landed, perfectly fine on the floor of what appeared to be a Seal Chamber, the entryway to any Chalice. There were no stairs leading upward to a bloodstained ritual alter, just flat grey walls and ornate frescos.

No great glowing hole hovered above me, leading ever higher into the earth. No pile of Hunters equipment signaling the start of an exploration, no chalk markings, just dust and silence. However, I fear that this silence shall not last long, as these candles are freshly lit, not by my own torch. I write this in the well-lit alcove that I have been transported into, the roots of plants creeping through the ceiling. Was The Door some form of portal? And if so, where am I? The architecture is Pthumerian, with statues of their First Queen decorating the doorways, and murals of Royal Guards wielding their katanas and maces atop pedestals of gold-etched stone. 

Were these people more versed in arcane arts than I thought? I haven’t seen magic like this since Isz, and that was merely blinding stardust and slimy beasts obsessed more with knowledge that feeding themselves. Their ever-burning weapons and star-filled hallways were moderately arcane, but portals to sealed catacombs potentially hundreds of miles away? Gatekeepers with their guts missing yet still holding The Door?

Floor 4?  
It has been give or take 3 hours since my last entry and much has happened. As I sat, penning the last entry, the sound of footsteps echoed into my ears from outside my little alcove. They weren’t the bone ashed clanking of Keepers wandering the halls for intruders, but soft like bare feet on stone. I cautiously peered out from my hiding place and came face to face with the quite surprised visage of a Labyrinth Watcher. It startled back, emaciated legs losing footing and crashing to the floor. 

However, the more dangerous part were the half-dozen other Watchers slowly shambling behind it. Only two of them were clad in black cloth with their scythes, but two is enough if you aren’t careful, especially when they swarm. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for them, my Saif is built for crowd control, and they fell well before they could even get through the door. However, this confirms the presence of Watchers, and if a large patrol like that goes missing, then others are likely to notice, so I made my move. 

I might as well describe this place, as I appear to possibly be trapped here for the foreseeable future. I opened into what appeared to be a large spiral staircase. The stairs only wound down, with alcoves filled with graves dotting the walls. Where there were no alcoves there were doors, leading off in many directions, all pointing away from the massive gravestone that dominated the center. I could barely make out the writing, as the language of Pthumeru has never been my strongsuit, but what I could gather marked it as the grave of a hero. The hieroglyphics showed what appeared to be 2 celestial bodies, one red, the other white. The white one was cracked in places and beginning to drift downward, although the meaning is lost on me. 

The first path took me to an engraved door, embossed with gold and silver. Behind it was a Madman, wielding an unorthodox weapon. Instead of the usual short scythes was what I initially assumed was a club. However, I was quickly shown that was not the case. No, the “club” was in fact a body, wrapped tight in rags and jewelry, spewing toxic gas and bile as it struck me. I killed it, but not before I was bruised intensely on my side. Besides that, there was nothing remarkable: the room was a grave, with an empty coffin where the Madman took its “club.” Gold dishes and ritual paraphernalia filled the corners of the room, laid out atop red cloth and the bones of the dead. 

I never did get the Pthumerian people’s obsession with death. I understand the honoring of the dead and the value of corpses and organs, but death was such an integral part of their lives that every aspect of their civilization reflects it. Graves, mausoleums, organs and bones separated from flesh and stored in gold and jewels, grand gardens fertilized with bone mulch, the consumption of bodies, the telling of stories that all end in death and honor… It confuses and excites me all at once. 

I leave and head down another passage, only to end up at a dead end. It makes me wonder why the Pthumerians built their cities and townships like this. Why a Labyrinth? Were they hiding from something or keeping something inside? If one were to view the hallways and rooms free from the surrounding soil would some grand pattern become known? 

I reach the end of the staircase, the base of the grave. A tall Pthumerian kneels at the base of it, a sword clasped in his hands. He is mumbling something, tone repentant yet lacking any fear. He stands, pulling his sword from the gravel it is buried in, and turns to face me. He wears a mask, the visage of a beast snarling at me as he all but hurls himself forward. He moves like a madman, sprinting towards me and swinging with his blade, lighter than it has any right to be. We fight up and down the stairs, my saif cutting through his flesh and his sword tearing at mine. I got behind him in the end, finishing him by raking the inner blade of my saif through his throat. I drag him to the grave he prayed at and leave him.

The last path leads me down a hallway to a lever-locked door. I can vaguely make out the shape of a humanoid at the end, standing still in the shadows and candlelight. I take the branching path, winding around and over itself until I reach an unguarded lever and pull it. A door has opened, and I’m ready to investigate Further. 

But first I must rest. Even a few hours of fighting can be exhausting. 

Floor 4.  
I have awoken an unknown number of hours later from my impromptu rest. I have shaken off the dirt from the dug-out alcove that was my bed and set off deeper into the halls of this place. However, before I head off, I should address something strange. In my previous entry the way I wrote of my experiences shifted from how I normally do to… some sort of present-tense cadence. It shifted mid-paragraph coinciding with… With when I don’t remember writing anything. At some point as I penned that entry I stopped focusing on what I was writing, and probably anything at all. 

Could it be some side effect of this Chalice’s location, some strange phenomenon Byrgenwerth never captured? Or is it a side effect of eating the flesh of the Gatekeeper what feels like more than half a week prior? The scholars never found a side effect to eating the flesh of Pthumerians, that much I remember. The strange compound they could isolate from their plasma had no effect, and I remember the testing Vividly. So if not that, what?

I’ll relay further information if it comes to me, but I am starting to think that there are many questions a simple prospector cannot answer. If I were a scholar I could come up with some high-minded hypothesis as to this cause, whether it be a disease of the flesh or a madness of the brain. I am not however, so I can only assume. Well, that and document. If anyone finds my body when I die down here or finds me lost and confused in some distant land, they can be assured that a record of my experiences will survive. 

I’ll pen another entry of my experiences soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our Dear Prospector, sadly in danger. Oh well, It is merely a necessary step for what is to come.


	5. Roko.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling deeper, the Unnamed Prospector has A Time Of It.

Floor 6.  
Oh, how I envy my past self! So unconcerned about everything about to happen to him! He had no idea what he was about to be put through! I pity that poor little fool. I’ll break up the impending awfulness into a few sections, just for the entertainment of whoever finds this off of my probably-dead body. Have fun whoever you are!

Onwards:  
I had begun to push forward, deeper into these twisting hallways and endless graves. With the door now open, there was nothing restricting my descent into the earth. Little did I know that the next door I would push open was yet another wall of fog to keep me heading deeper. I was so distraught at the feeling of that ice-cold mist filling the doorway behind me that I almost didn’t notice the beast lurking inside. 

The room I had entered was more a cave than anything else I have seen down here. The ground was sticky, clutching at my boots and filled with the rotting corpses of Pthumerians. Their milky white faces and pitch-dark eyes stared up at me as I felt the tempered cold against my back. In the middle of the massive room sat a large… gravestone? No, too jagged, too broken to be a grave of any sort. What I can say it really might’ve been was… A Prison. 

Great chains of wrought metal had fallen slack from the slab, leaving free the hideous beast once-chained to the center. It stood taller than any man or beast I have ever seen, easily able to pick me up and simply crush me in one clawed hand. The body was hunched, as if experiencing some great pain. Maybe it was the massive gash running down its back, with skin and flesh and fur pulled open to the point where I could see the bone. Or maybe it was the head, or lack thereof. That stump of a neck turned towards me and despite there being no eyes or ears or even a nose, it Knew I was there. 

How could I have ever won against that titan of a beast? Even now I do not know, the battle only coming back to me in flashes of sight and sound and smell. The only part that still sticks clear in my mind was a brief period of calm. I had hacked away at the beast’s ankles for what felt like minutes, when something simply gave and it fell forward with a thunderous crash. And I thought I had won, that the beast was slain and I would live to plod deeper into this place more or less unscathed. 

I was wrong.

With a horrible sound of tearing meat and snapping bone, something burst forth from that ruined stump. I knew not what it was for several panic filled seconds, turning back to gain distance between myself and the thing. Now, what did I see, you may be wondering? What broke free from a cage of viscera? A great red worm, bursting forth from throat and out of front. It twitched more violently than the beast did, spasming and thrashing with a set of jaws right out of the most desperate nightmares. 

Was it dead all along? Was the beast merely a suit of flesh for that horrid, squirming thing? 

It doesn’t matter. 

It’s dead now. 

I left that room soaked in blood and bile and who knows what else, mind foggy as it tried to make sense of the horror I had just borne witness to. My nausea was unbearable, and like I said in my moment of madness and blood writing: It felt like eyes, twitching and turning inside my head… Or maybe I’m just finally going mad, maybe I’m strapped to a bed in Byrgenwerth and ranting of blue Doors and endless hallways. 

Would that be any better?

I’m trapped all the same.

Now, you’d think that I might get a brief respite after that, wouldn’t you? The “Hero” kills the beast, free for at least a moment to relax for the next task? 

Wrong. 

As soon as I rode down the chain-suspended elevator from that rotten swamp I found my very next problem. The hallway from the elevator shaft was filled with the slight shapes of three… Shadows? There is no better word to describe the beings that stood silhouetted in the long room before me.

They appeared like the shades cast by a man wearing a robe, but physical, substantial. One held a singular, dark katana, almost similar to that vileblood woman’s weapon: Rakuyo. The second held a katana as well, but one handed this time. Its other clutched a candlestick, lit with a sickly red flame. It wavered in the stagnant air, as if about to blow out at any moment. The third was much different. One hand gripped a mace, unadorned with spikes or sharp edges, merely a sphere of black iron at the end of a rod. The free hand, however, hung wreathed in flame. It glowed just as sickly as the candlestick, whipping in nonexistent winds. They stalked forward, feet silent on the stone floor. So, I did the only sensible thing for one to do when confronted with these odds and a chance to avoid them: I ran. 

I ran forward, hoping that they would anticipate an attack and act accordingly. Fortuitously for me that is exactly what they did, and I slipped between the two wielding blades. They startled back, confused as I ran deeper into the tomb. I would like to say that I acted with reason in the ensuing hours, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. Too much happened for me to give any form of accurate account of events, so I will summarize. 

I ran deeper, running from Shadows and corpse-wielding madmen and Pthumerian slaves. I spent hours picking off those I could, when I could. I waited by the traps I could identify, by toxic pits and curling stairs. When the opportunity presented itself I would spring to action, swiftly dispatching those I could. And when I couldn’t, I just ran. 

The only event of true note was… my last encounter with those three Shadows. The room I found myself in was almost a colosseum, with many wide pillars and a circular upper level. A series of bells hung from the darkened ceiling, ringing every second. At this point though, everything was dead, there was no one to come but those three. 

My saif was bloody and battered by the time they found me, for as the hours had wound down I grew more confident. Never have I ever seen so much combat by myself, felt so invigorated by the flying blood and tearing flesh. I knew I would win; I had no doubt. 

The battle was met in that ringing colosseum, my head filled with the clanging bells and crunching of bone. I took the mace-wielding shadow first, for the fire that came from his hand would follow me wherever I tried to hide. I killed it, put my fist through its chest and pulled out an assortment of strange organs. Then, I heard screaming. As my saif cut cleanly away its head, something burst from the stump. I half expected the same crawling thing that had infested the beast far above me in the swamp, but instead I was met with serpents. 

A bouquet of hissing bodies sprung from the dead one, and both still living shades. They clutched their skulls, the sound of hissing rising above the bells. And then they burst, like a spider’s egg sack. A halo of hissing forms biting at my exposed flesh as I tore into theirs. It didn’t matter, I killed the candle-holder, crushing the unmalting wax beneath my boot and slamming its brittle skull into the stonework. This scared the final shadow for it fell back and nearly dropped the now-blazing katana it held. I readied my saif… And then something else happened. I probably should have expected something like this given… Everything I’ve seen so far in this forsaken grave. The final shadow fell to its knees, pressed its hand in the dirt and spoke one word, which I did not recognize, but I do remember.

“Roko!”

The serpent that burst forth from beneath the earth was a true monster in every sense of the word. An overlapping coat of armored scales formed a jagged sheet of protection, covering everything save the mouth and eyes. Each were nightmarish in a different aspect. 

The fangs were a foot long at the least, dripping blood or maybe poison. Either way, they burned my skin as they made contact, tearing through my flesh. But those were nothing! Nothing compared to those golden eyes! They stared out at me from behind its thick plating, and I felt rooted to the floor. I was petrified by that gaze, unable to protect myself from the burning teeth and slashing katana. 

It took every ounce of willpower within me to break away, to force my arms to lift and my legs to move and my hands to send the blade of my saif through the chest of the final shadow. I still don’t know where that serpent went, for I squeezed my eyes shut until that yellow glow faded and the image of baleful eyes left the back of my skull. 

I do not know how long I spent curled up on the pitch-stained floor, clutching my head and willing my thoughts to quiet. The bells still rang above me, and the sound of dying hisses trickled into my ear. I must have fallen asleep on the dirt floor, for when I awoke, aching and groggy, the bells had fallen silent. The corpses of snake-filled shadows still sat cool on the ground, leaking pitch-dark blood onto the floor. Looking closer I had noticed they weren’t proper, formless shadows. They had the gaunt frames of Pthumerians, yet skin as sark as soot. Their eyes were vestigial, sunken further into their skull and covered in skin. Well, That’s from what I could see beyond the Snakes. 

Which raises the question: Why? This place I have fallen to bears the mark of the Hintertombs, obviously, with pits of poison and rot. Yet, I have seen the parasites bred in Loran, the tomb molds from Isz. And now snakes, bursting forth as if parasites from the bodies of strange pseudo-Pthumerians. At the time, my brain could sense a through-thread. A common plot of filth and squirming things crawling through the dark. Snakes and bugs and rats and animals and wretched slaves. Toxic swamps filled with half-dead corpses still clinging to life. 

My notebook forgotten and a maddening curiosity forming within my head I pressed on. Nothing impeded my progress to the elevator, and nothing greeted me as I rode it down into the deep. I stepped into a hallway, sloping ever downward and lined with braziers of choking mist. The ceiling is jagged, stalactites dripping sizzling water to the pitted stonework floor. It burns and chokes as I march forward, as I pull open a gate and kick aside the refuse of ages past. I slaughtered the half-dead, half-immortal Pthumerians and descended deeper, climbing down stairs and dropping into pits. Never had the descent been so vertical, but I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop throwing myself recklessly into the dark. My head blurred and my stomach churned as snakes and maggots crawled out of the walls to bite and pinch and sting. 

When I found the next gate I had no need to look for the lever, because it sat right above it. Up a staircase on either side stood the switch I was looking for, but the thing guarding it was another story. 

I can recall great, scuttling, spider-like legs below the body of a scorpion. The chimeric creature’s tail arched so high as to brush the ceiling, stirring cobwebs and insects alike. The face was the true horror however. It was nothing found above, as if a human head was placed before a sculptor, told to crudely fashion it into the visage of the serpent. Flat and too-sharp teeth crammed into the same maw, guarding a tongue more reptile than man. 

It was fearsome, yet no match for the mania driving me onward. I severed its head and drove the engorged green stinger deep into its spine. It still moved and twitched and burned behind me as I continued my descent. And what a descent it was! I jumped down cliffs, scrabbling for purchase on slippery ledges and feeling almost enraged when the crags reached an end. 

The floor opened up from my last fall into a grand circular arena. Opulent chandeliers coated in rust and rotting cloth hung from the parts of the ceiling that had not collapsed to the floor. Those which did formed grand piles of rubble, dotting the room with cover. And the final thing in the room? The beast at its center. 

It stood large, body cracking and shifting as whatever slumber I had stirred fell away. Great gouts of toxic smoke and steaming liquid flowed from its inorganic flesh, raising a vapor of poison about it. Its face was that of a Watchdog, one of those monstrous beasts of fire and molten-rock guarding the most important tombs, yet not even a spark was visible upon its hardened shell. Snakelike fangs dotted its maw, and the holes it had instead of eyes were merged together by the cracking flesh, forming the pupils of a serpent. 

It moved like a Watchdog, with sweeping slashes sending out a spray of poison droplets rather than flame. Its bites were not the massive headbutting crunches of the variant I’ve seen before, but quick strikes with the intent to grab and never let go. After my saif split open both of its side legs and a chunk of the head, it began to curl in on itself. Its head folded between clawed legs and Snapped with a sickening Crunch. It did not die however, for even with its head hanging at a sickening angle and a waterfall of toxins flowing from the snapped stump, it hung on. 

It was futile. Like everything before it I laid waste to the flesh and carved out swathes of what I could. A waterfall of toxic water flowed from the insides, corrosive geysers turning the very floor treacherous. Even as the poison burned my flesh, it never hurt. No, all the pain went to my head and made it throb with fullness. Like when you’ve eaten too much, when you’ve stuffed yourself and regret it. But the pain made me go further, push my body until the thing finally fell and I fell in turn against the corpse. My wounds were nothing and my adversary dead. 

So I write this from my spot besides this titanic corpse. The stone that is its flesh is slowly disintegrating even as I write this, eroding away into a pool of impurity. When I touch it however I feel no pain, no wrongness. Just a throbbing in my head and stomach. It is not the throbbing of a headache, nor that of hunger. It is strange but… Never have I felt so Right. So Welcome. 

I should sleep. Sleep and maybe wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmmmm... We wonder whatever's happening to our dear Prospector~ We're quite sure he'll be alright.


	6. ((Author Update

((Hey, this is just a quick update to let ppl know that it might be a bit longer until the next entry of this fic: I'm having wrist troubles and that's making writing very hard. Hopefully I should be better in a few weeks, but it's sadly up in the air.


	7. Absent Reminiscence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having felled a corrupted Watchdog, our dear Prospector makes... A Realization.

Floor 6.

Heh, It seems I was quite introspective while writing this previous entry. Quite Obsessed too, jumping down a whole jagged cliff-face simply because I was compelled by the siren song of the depths. For why did some strange reason of my own coerce me deeper down a pit of caustic acid and writhing, biting things? Maybe it is a product of a venom, some toxin? Something injected into my veins by the bite of that accursed basilisk? Or was my previous guess at the presence of an airborne or foodborne contaminant correct? I’ve been bitten and exposed enough times down here that it could very easily be either. 

Speaking of exposure, I want to mention something strange that occurred to me whilst waking up. I found myself lounging against the bulk of the toxic Watchdog, half-submerged in acid. Yet, the acid has not touched my skin. I do not mean that it hasn’t penetrated my leather and cloth garments, no; what I mean is that despite marinating within a pool of causticity, my skin is no more damaged than it had been. It surely is corrosive, slowly breaking down the dirt and stonework, yet I am merely soaked. And secondly, my notebook, submerged in this awful substance, was completely dry! Not even the ink had run.

My mind hurts trying to turn my attention to it, the same way as when I dealt with that Door. It wasn’t the pleasant fullness I felt while slaying this Watchdog, but a dull throb of eyestrain and migraines. It feels Familiar. 

…No reason to put it off. I’m trying to retain a shred of optimism in the face of all this adversity… but I am ever more concerned than I have been before. As I have ventured far below the earth, I have changed. Something is terribly Wrong with me, no matter how strangely perfect it feels. Acid does not touch me, and my notebook mysteriously remains dry. I can’t keep my tenses steady while writing, speaking of events that Have Happened and Are Happening interchangeably no matter how hard I try to focus. And perhaps most damningly, something I haven’t admitted to myself until I write this: I have not hungered or thirst since several entries ago. The blood I had considered resorting to drinking is no longer necessary. Even my lips do not chap from lack of water!

I don’t know what this is, what strange illness or process is causing me to change in ways I can’t even explain away. The Arcane was never my strongsuit, never was I an aficionado of Phantasms and Star-signs. Yet that is the only thing this can be, right? The Door or that Chalice or something else, it changed me, is changing me. Just as it changed Ludwig, just as poor Dores. 

I need to gather my thoughts.

Floor 7.

After the few quiet hours I needed to calm down, I’ve decided to descend deeper. At one end of that circular arena was a door, remarkably preserved for the condition of everything around it. Great reliefs of dancing figures covered the bronze metal, Pthumerians and their skeletons dancing within a ring of fire. It gives… a divine energy, rays of light falling inwards to those dancing in apparent joy. So the Pthumerians at first were never simply the cold, half-dead guardians of the Great Ones? It makes sense I suppose, for how would a race without care build such a once-glorious civilization? 

And another thing: these Pthumerians depicted here, they are not screaming. They do not have the gaping, sunken pits of darkness that usually denote their kind, but have wide smiles that they almost don’t seem capable of making. And they’re dancing! They’re performing a group event that doesn’t involve rituals, at least none that we know, and they’re enjoying themselves. What happened to them? What ruined their civilization?

The hallway beyond is grand, filled with ornamental tapestries and elegant statues. They are touched by rot and toxicity, yes, but they still stand proudly. Images of warriors and mages and their nobility decorate the walls, inlaid with gold and precious gems. Their faces are uncovered and their eyes are… Exposed. They aren’t black and bottomless, but each visible eye is set with a gem. Some red, others orange and yellow, but all the colors of fire, of flame. Even the images of the Queen’s Royal Guards, cloaked in night, have eyes like bonfires. 

WAIT. I recognize the shapes of the Queen’s Guard. They are dressed as and wield the exact same weapons as those shadows I killed above, the ones who were infested with serpents. The ones who shouted some strange word and called a basilisk from the depths of this place. What is this? What’s going on? Why is everything living and dead down here infested? Something happened to them, and I feel like it has something to do with that word I heard them say: Roko. Roko. What does it mean?

Connections leap into place in my mind, jumping from one thought to the other like the arcing curves of Loran’s darkbeasts. Roko has no meaning to me, yet when it was spoken something was called forth. Those who called it were infested with vermin, and the empire they used to serve is collapsing, has collapsed. Snakes and pests all share connotations of trickery and corruption, and the Great Ones are sometimes known to have inspired tropes and imagery. Did a Great One ruin Pthumeru? 

If that is the case than that must only be a fragment of some grander story, some rich and awful history. Some god of serpents and trickery would not explain the sunken citadels and great cracks in the earth. There’s more than just filth, there’s beasts and half-ascended men and arcane secrets we never understood. Something big happened to Pthumeru, or maybe several big things. I’m starting to think the Empire fell all at once.

Further into the place and I’ve found another strange image. Entirely made of gold leaf, there is a depiction of woman made of roiling fire. She holds a hand out on either side of her, what might be the Sun forming a crown. From each slit wrist comes a flow of something, a straight line of orange crystal and a line of deep ruby gems. Blood and fire maybe? Whatever they are, the reliefs of Pthumerians below seem to collect the stuff, filling goblets and lanterns and bowls, drinking it down and lighting their way. Is this a depiction of a god? Some deity of light giving of herself for the people? She’s smiling, not wide and sinister. It’s soft and caring like one who might worry for an injured animal. Is this a Great One? Or just some Goddess, revered by the people who guarded them? A phrase was emblazoned at the bottom of the relief, written in gold and High Pthumerian. 

Frighteningly, I can understand it:

“Yiasancte:  
What we were we are not now,

What we knew we now know more.

We were chained and now we’re free,

Now we’ve seen, and now they’ll see.”

Why can I understand this… this prayer? That’s what it is, it’s a prayer to someone I do not know. I do though. It’s obviously this figure, this burning Great One bestowing fire and blood upon the Pthumerians. Did Yiasancte take pity on the Pthumerians and grant them gifts? Or is this their creation myth? 

There’s more. More reliefs and frescos and iconography covering the walls. I can read it now, read the Pthumerian’s angular writing and make sense of twisting, glimmering stories. I can see feasts, religious services, times of grief. Battles and peacetime intermingle with each other as the names of… of the uncountable dead keep the company of heroes and monarchs. They’re equal in life as in death, and their monarchs are… Philosopher Queens, taking up their role with reverence.

Oh god, we were wrong about their society all along. All those almost-naked, starving wretches were never slaves, just citizens ravaged by the pace of time. We thought maybe theocratic, with the Ritekeepers presiding over daily life, but they only walked along all others. Their civilizations was… idyllic almost, filled with problems but they never sat complacent in them. Something shattered this place, and… I don’t know. I’ll write all I can when I can. As soon as I can sit, can rest, I’ll write all I can. If they are gone, their cities crumbled and roads overgrown, then every man who can remember them well should. Every single one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Fallen Empire of Pthumeru Is not what many have thought. What happened to it? What brought it all crashing down?


End file.
